Travis Gilpin lay flat on his back behind the burnout box at Memphis International Raceway in total silence, just a few feet behind Todd Maschmeier’s wounded ’68 Camaro. His driver suit was pulled down to his waist, and the racing logo on his hat was almost unrecognizable beneath the dirt and chemical stains. He had a defeated look on his weather-beaten face, the lines of his cheeks caked with oil and aggravation. Except for a puzzled track official who stood over him repeatedly asking whether or not he wanted the Camaro pushed or pulled off the track, there were few people around to witness the dismal scene. Most of the other competitors had already hit the road, looking for victories large and small on the last leg of HOT ROD Drag Week™, the racing road trip that’s the proving ground for the fastest street/strip cars on Earth.

Travis and Todd were left with the rest of the stragglers to decide their fate. Would they thrash on the car again to keep it running like they had done relentlessly during the previous four days, or call it off because they were about to pass out from exhaustion and were no longer in contention? Not winning after leading the Modified Power Adder class by a wide margin would hurt badly, but not finishing Drag Week™ would sting more. Travis didn’t have an answer, at least not one that seemed rational or appealing. After defying the cruel open road and driving like a man possessed on dragstrips from Oklahoma to Tennessee, he finally took a break and shut down both mentally and physically.

1/58A Random act of kindness bailed out Todd Maschmeier on Day 1 of Drag Week™. After his Camaro’s front crossmember played Whack-A-Mole with a bridge-expansion joint 20 miles outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a local offered some assistance in the form of a husband with a portable MIG welder, a Port-A-Power, and a spare trans pan. It took all night to fix the damage, as Travis Gilpin, Tim Reed, and Ryan Olah put metal Band-Aids on the IFS using a 13⁄16 socket as a control-arm pivot point. The guys would make it all the way to Memphis before surrendering the Modified Power Adder class lead to Bryant Goldstone. They’ll be back next year, possibly in an Unlimited car.

Todd sat against a nearby pole in equally bad shape, the lack of sleep and sustenance clearly taking a toll. Like many before them, the duo came to Drag Week™ to set the world on fire and came close to lighting the match. Rapidly deteriorating camshafts, unforgiving asphalt, and 1,000-plus miles of white-line fever ultimately extinguished the flame, just 48 hours short of sealing the deal. That’s the thing about the five days of Drag Week™—the difference between winning, losing, or finishing can be a few miles or a few thousandths of a second. It doesn’t matter how much you test, how much you spend, or how fast your hot rod is—it ain’t over till it’s over. It takes ironclad commitment to succeed, because Drag Week™ will find the flaws in your racing program and make them fatal.

No sane person pays $275 to subject their hot rod to this masochistic exercise the HOT ROD staff concocted back in 2005, which is why Drag Week™ participants represent the very soul of hot rodding. The goal is to race five times at four different tracks in five days, driving the car from track to track while carrying everything you need to keep your junk running either in the car or inside a small trailer hitched to the back. Make as many passes as you like, then give us the timeslip with the lowest e.t. at each track and head to the next one until you make it back to the point of origin. The route is predetermined by HOT ROD, and we require photographic evidence that you follow it. The competitor with the lowest average e.t. in each class is the winner—as long as they make it to the last track and break the beams. The only deviation in format is for the Daily Driver class, which ends with a bracket race made up of the 32 quickest cars with an average e.t. of more than 10.80 seconds. In the end, the car with the quickest average becomes HOT ROD’s Fastest Street Car in America.

Drag Week™ is for real street/strip cars, not full-tilt race cars that someone slapped a license plate on to come out and play bully. The rules are liberal enough that we’ve had race cars treated like street cars that get in the show, but their appearances have been brief; the event has a sinister way of eliminating purpose-built race cars through lengthy driving distances between tracks—some have failed to drive even 100 miles. If the road doesn’t get ya, our crack staff will. We check for registration, insurance, legit VIN numbers—everything that makes a real street car, right down to functional turn signals and a horn.

What do you get if you win? A jacket that we fail to mail to you for a year and awesome prizes from title sponsor Gear Vendors and presenting sponsors Rockett Brand race fuel, Comp Cams, MSD, Mickey Thompson, NOS, TCI, QA1, and Champion Lubricants. Cash ruins drag racing, so it’s not in the Drag Week™ equation. Besides, it’s not about money, and most participants care less about the jacket than they do merely surviving the trip. Many come to see if they have enough MacGyver in their blood to fix what the road throws at them. To some, Drag Week™ is about BS’ing in motel parking lots over a few cold ones with like-minded individuals at the end of a long day on the highway. Others hunt for personal e.t. goals. No matter what the motivation is, everyone becomes part of a tight-knit and dysfunctional family. That family started out 187 cars strong this year. By the time we reached the last track, 36 hot rods had died on the road. Another 30 were out because they couldn’t wait around for the weather to clear up so they could make their last pass during an extended rain delay.

2/58Dave Schroeder and John Ens put the turbo guys on notice with a 7.32 run on a single stage of nitrous during their very first pass. The ’66 Corvette, which only weighs 2,600 pounds including the meat in the seat, runs a 598ci Chevy with four stages of Monte Smith–tuned horsepower. Battery failures and overheating issues slowed them down. A fragged lifter, which hung an exhaust valve open the next day at Ennis, put them permanently out of commission.

This is a recap of the most inspiring and soul-crushing stories in the heads-up classes during Drag Week™. Next month, we’ll examine the phenomenon that is the Daily Driver class.

A Guide to the Racing Classes

The full rules for Drag Week™ can be found at HOTROD.com, but for readers of this story, here’s a quick primer on what’s what.

Unlimited: No rules other than NHRA safety specs.

Pro Street: This is for cars with stock framerails, non-stock rear suspension, and extra-wide rear tires. The Pro Street Category has two classes, one for naturally aspirated engines and another for power-adders.

Modified: Cars that run small rear tires with non-stock rear suspension (like a four-link or ladder bars) run one of two classes: Modified Naturally Aspirated or Modified Power Adder.

Super Street: This category is for the all-out cars with bolt-on-style rear suspension and small tires. There are three classes: Super Street Power Adder, Super Street Small-Block Naturally Aspirated, and Super Street Big-Block Naturally Aspirated.

Street Race: Here’s the most restricted category in the event. Cars here must have chassis that are essentially stock with bolt-ons, and they cannot run quicker than 8.50 because Funny Car cages are not allowed. There are four engine classes: Big-Block Power Adder, Big-Block Naturally Aspirated, Small-Block Power Adder, and Small-Block Naturally Aspirated.

Gasser/AFX: For retro-looking, ’60s-style cars

Hot Rod: For ’48-and-older, retro-style cars.

Daily Driver: This class is open to any modifications and is limited to a 10.80 e.t. There’s a full story about it next month.

The Tracks, the Roads

On the surface, it seems like the HOT ROD staff goes out of its way to make the route longer each year. The reality is that it’s difficult to find four quarter-mile tracks that are all within a couple hundred miles of each other that will open up during the week with no guarantee of a large audience coming through the gates. Further complicating things in 2012 was our wish for tracks with the best possible racing surfaces to give the best chance for the Unlimited class cars to put up a 6-second average. Although the 1,400-mile total was a record high this year, most racers agreed that the tracks were stellar.

We began in Oklahoma at Tulsa Raceway Park, which closed after Drag Week™ ’11 and reopened soon after. We can’t say enough about the great staff and facility at Tulsa. The first drive was a 380-mile gut shot that took everyone down to Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas. We left Texas on Tuesday and made our way to Gilliam, Louisiana, home of Thunder Road Raceway Park. That took another 230 miles, but at least the host hotel was a casino—not that most racers had time to hit the tables. On Thursday, it was 355 miles east to Memphis International Raceway with a rapidly thinning herd. The last leg was 400-plus miles of Interstate 40, with lots of pothole-filled side roads thrown in for good measure. Those who made it back to Tulsa for the finale had done something special that only few hot rodders can lay claim to.

Pro Street Power Adder

Six cars entered, but only three had a legitimate shot at winning, and they couldn’t be more different. Eric Yost was once again packing 400 inches of turbocharged, Pontiac-headed small-block Chevy power in an ’82 Firebird. (This car is a past class winner, and also won the ’10 HOT ROD Top Speed Challenge, running 241 mph in the standing mile.) Past winner Mike Roy brought his ’71 Monte Carlo with a 540ci Chevy and a pair of 88mm Garrett hair dryers. Glen Hunter was riding wheelies in his ’56 Chevy with a 555ci Chevy topped with an 8.3L Whipple blower and a new Big & Ugly EFI hat spraying E85 and replacing last year’s carbs. Hunter’s car stayed within a tenth of his Day 1 e.t. all week, running 8.50s, but Yost and Roy beat that by a lot.

The Firebird, affectionately called The Dirty Bird, got down and even dirtier this year. At one point, the hood nearly blew off. Then the pop-up sunroof did indeed blow off. By the last day, the Bird had more duct tape than paint on the front clip. It didn’t matter, though, because the 7.60 it laid down at Ennis, Texas, was the quickest pass of the week in Pro Street PA and lowered Eric’s average enough to beat Mike Roy by less than four-hundredths of a second. Both cars stayed in the 7s the first four days, but Mike wounded the Monte Carlo in Memphis. A rain cancellation in Tulsa on Friday, Day 5, would have given him the win, but when we decided to wait it out and extend the race to Saturday, Mike could only manage an 8.28, which killed his average. He would have to settle for Second Place.

Not only did Yost win, but his 7.866-second average also gave him the third-quickest finish of Drag Week™. Roy’s 7.903 average was fourth quickest.

01] The Dirty Bird’s hood was long gone at this point, but the sunroof was still intact. That wouldn’t last long, as it was ejected and smashed to bits somewhere on the highway.

02] Glenn was unfazed when a four-link mount broke free of the rear axlehousing and a tire tube blew out on the way back to Tulsa. He still finished Third in Pro Street Power Adder, with an 8.57 average.

03] Eric Yost is mourning the accidental release of a full keg of beer inside his trailer. The Pro Street Power Adder class win would soothe the burn a little.

6/584.

04] Have you recently seen a 4,100-pound car look this good? Mike Roy’s '71 Monte is doin’ work.

05] Nature almost handed Mike Roy the win when rain threatened to stop everyone from making that all-important fifth and final pass at Tulsa. He had to settle for Second Place when racing resumed on Day 6 and his wounded Monte only went 8.28 and ruined his 7-second average.

07] The JMB Performance–powered Ram reportedly had only dyno time on the motor when it arrived at Drag Week™. On Day 2, the head gasket let go, and the escaping cylinder pressure torched the cylinder head and block.

08] Australian John Farone spent a solid month before Drag Week™ camped out at Larry Larson’s shop making ’cage and chassis mods to help the handling of his Australian ’72 Dodge Charger. The car ran 8.29 at 168 mph on Day 1, but the week went in the toilet on Tuesday when the tranny puked at the top end of the track and caught fire. His compadres cleaned up the mess and soldiered on, but the trans was out of the car at multiple tracks. In the rain on the highway, the trailer jack-knifed and connected with the side of the car. John finally called it quits on the last day, never having run in the 8s again after the first pass.

10/5808

11/589.

09] The flame-retardant-covered engine bay gives a good visual to how rough John Farone’s week was. We ran into him a few weeks later in Perth, Australia, and his only regret about his Drag Week™ experience was his bad luck with trannies.

Pro Street Naturally Aspirated

James “Doc” McEntire has owned the Pro Street NA title two years in a row, but this year saw his greatest fear realized: competing against a lightweight Fox Mustang with big power. That was Curt Johnson, who fielded a Chevy-powered ’Stang that went 8.85, the quickest-ever pass for the class. But a family issue sent Curt home and Doc on the road to his third victory in the class. His real goal was to finally get his ’68 Camaro into the 8s at Drag Week™, which he did on Day 2 with an 8.92 pass, followed by an 8.96 pass on Day 3. The rest of the week was spent fending off Darrin Pape’s Chevy Vega, which had a slower 10-second average. The real chase was for Third, with Todd Berry’s ’55 Chevy pickup and newcomer Bruce Mueller’s ’98 GMC truck running tight all week. With a 427ci small-block and 18-degree heads, the ’55 edged past the ’98 by just 0.006 second.

01] Doc McEntire was making big power with a new induction setup (big help from small-block racer Jeff McConnell) and got sideways more than once on Day 1 with an overly aggressive setup out of the hole. He eventually went the other direction with the launch timing of his E85-swilling 555ci big-block Chevy and got into the 8s on Day 2. That 8.92 was the quickest-ever naturally aspirated pass during Drag Week™. Doc’s car was featured in the Aug. '12 issue.

12/5801

13/58

02] Darrin Pape’s LS1/4L65E-powered Vega makes 650 hp and is capable of bottom 10s. That wasn’t enough for the win, but Pape did score Second Place, and, more importantly, finished Drag Week™.

Modified Power Adder

Todd Maschmeier’s Camaro was one of our favorites, not only because it pushed the rules to the limit and ran hard (7.60s) with a 605ci big-block Chevy, a single Pro Systems SV1, and a lot of nitrous oxide!), but also because Todd and his friends never said die until there was no reasonable way to keep the car running. On Day 1, after dropping a bomb on the Modified Power Adder class with a 7.79 e.t. at 179 mph, the lower crossmember said Hello! to a raised section of highway overpass just outside of Tulsa, and it punched into the oil and tranny pans. The guys fixed it on the shoulder of the road using a borrowed MIG welder, and although some engine damage had been done when the bottom of the oil pan mangled the oil-pump pickup, they motored onto the next track and went 7.68 at 181 mph. On Day 2, the Chevy killed a camshaft and a set of lifters. Todd replaced the valvetrain and main and rod bearings at the track and kept on truckin’. At Gilliam, Louisiana, the Camaro ran 8.11 at 174 mph and killed Todd’s spare camshaft. On Day 4, Todd and Travis limped the car to Memphis on six cylinders, with every intention of using three stages of nitrous to maintain their half-second lead over Bryant Goldstone’s Procharger-blown, big-block-powered Chevelle. They even had new valvetrain parts on standby at Comp Cams’ facility. But as Travis rolled into the burnout box, the engine sounded about as healthy as the doctors who performed emergency surgery on it minutes beforehand. The Camaro wouldn’t spin the tires in the water box, and Travis knew that hitting it with nitrous would kill the big-block and that they’d still lose and not finish the race. It was at that moment that he decided it was time to wave the white flag.

Goldstone enjoyed a half-second advantage over the only other racer in the class, Drag Week™ first-timer James Goad, who was battling a malfunctioning nitrous system on his ’64 Chevelle. Goad’s 606ci, fuel-injected Chevy back-tracked its way through Drag Week™ and still wound up in Second Place. Goldstone cruised to victory with an 8.31 average.

01] Happier times: We banished the flat-black Camaro to the Impound area in the pits on Day 2, and Travis Gilpin and Todd Maschmeier responded with a 7.68 at 181 mph, a personal record and the quickest pass in class history.

02] Game Over: Todd breaks the bad news about the Camaro’s engine via cell phone. We hope the next call was to the local motel, because neither he nor Travis had slept more than four hours in four days.

03] We put a cap of 200 entries on Drag Week™ this year. James Goad was one of the wait-list alternates who received a phone call 42 days before the event to let him know he was in. The problem was that his engine was in North Carolina, and the car was in Oklahoma. It was a total thrash to get the beautiful black ’64 Chevelle together, and it never ran to its potential, as James fought a dead nitrous system all week. He still finished in Second Place.

17/584.

04] Bryant Goldstone should be familiar to HRM readers because he finished Fourth at Drag Week™ ’11, and was featured in the May 2012 issue after putting the most power to the wheels at Power Tour ’11® on the Lucas Oil mobile chassis dyno. Winning the Modified Power Adder class with an 8.31 average ought to make him even more famous.

No one could touch Ray Meyers’ ’67 Plymouth Barracuda in the Modified NA class, which is good because without a ’cage certification allowing the car to go into the 9s, his strategy of lifting at the 1,000-foot mark at every track might not have worked out so well. He probably had the best week of anyone, because in his words, “We never checked tire pressure, never changed the oil—we did nothing. I got to the track early, got in line first, made a 10-second pass, and then enjoyed watching the other cars run.”

That’s not to say Billy Gebhart didn’t have fun running mid-to-low 11s in his ’62 Valiant, and Doyle Henderson finished with an 11.71 average in his ’67 Camaro. Dan Wilcox was the only other class finisher in his ’53 Chevy 3100 truck, which went as quick as 12.80.

Modified Naturally Aspirated Results

Who

Day 1

Day 2 Average

Day 3 Average

Day 4 Average

Day 5 Average

Ray Meyers

10.021

10.032

10.115

10.090

10.183

Billy Gebhart

11.623

11.515

11.486

11.476

11.448

Doyle Henderson

11.746

11.695

11.637

11.659

11.712

Green = First Place, Yellow = Second Place, Red = Third Place

18/581.

01] Ray Meyers was on Easy Street, literally coasting to the win in Modified NA. See the green tape on the cowl? It was all over the car at times, fixing leaks during rain storms.

02] Meyers’ 493ci Mopar is topped with a set of Indy heads, a tunnel-ram, and a pair of Edelbrocks. A 727 and stock Dana rearend from his buddy Kevin Harrell’s van spins the Mickey 325s.

19/5802

“Being a copilot in 2006 and 2008 with Eddie Miller pretty much taught me what not to do.” - Ray Meyers

Super Street Big-Block Naturally Aspirated

There’s no better demonstration of the role attrition plays in the standings than in this class. Steve Satterlee’s ’90 Mustang was almost seven-tenths of a second slower than Vince Rasch’s ’69 Firebird and four-tenths slower than Kevin Barkley’s ’78 Malibu on Day 1, but he took the win anyway because he was the lone finisher. Vince has been at every Drag Week™ event, but his eighth appearance didn’t go as planned: His 535ci Pontiac destroyed valvesprings by the dozen, and his trans wasn’t happy, either. Most of the family helped out, but he eventually ran out of parts to keep the Bird rolling.

Satterlee had his hands full keeping the ’Stang alive, too. It pushed an oil-pan gasket on day one. RTV fixed it. Then two miles down the road, the headers hit the tarmac during a hard bottom-out. That ripped off the heat shielding, which let the radiated heat from the pipes burn the quick-disconnect tranny cooler line, filling the car with smoke. High-temp insulation soaked in Super Glue, and a couple of hose clamps allowed Satterlee to get to a local Quick Lube for a more permanent repair with push-lock fittings. Joe Foy swears the Super Glue would have made it the distance. For the rest of the trip, Foy and Satterlee were Team Super Glue. Farther down the road in Arkansas, the car refused to start at one of the checkpoints because it was blistering hot inside and out. Corey Eldred used his Camaro’s nitrous bottle to hose down the carb, intake, filter, fuel pump, and fuel tank. After everyone hugged the empty bottle to enjoy the frosty coolness, the ’Stang started right up and made it to back to Tulsa.

Super Street Big-Block Naturally Aspirated Results

Who

Day 1

Day 2 Average

Day 3 Average

Day 4 Average

Day 5 Average

Steve Saterlee

10.627

10.268

10.137

12.501

12.016

Vince Rasch

9.954

10.061

9.919

DNF

DNF

Ken Barkley

10.226

DNF

DNF

DNF

DNF

Green = First Place, Yellow = Second Place, Red = Third Place

01] All Steve Satterlee had to do was finish Drag Week™ for a win in Super Street Big-Block NA. Gary Satterlee’s ’67 Camaro tried to stop him by rolling backward into Steve’s trailer in a motel parking lot. The 632ci Chevy-powered ’90 Mustang would go on to win anyway with a 12.01 average.

20/58

21/582.

02] This was a familiar scene for Vince Rasch—hood and valve covers off, looking for broken valvesprings.

Super Street Small-Block Naturally Aspirated

Jeff McConnell and his ’80 Malibu have had a tough history with Drag Week™. He’d previously run the quickest small-block NA time ever seen at the event, but he’s never finished. This time, he needed to run the full five days and also outpace Dustin Trance’s ’79 Malibu and Kevin James’ ’93 Mustang for the win. He did that with a 9.95 average and also reset the naturally aspirated small-block record with a pass of 9.679 at 138.9 mph at Thunder Road in Louisiana. That’s incredible for a high-strung, every-trick, 427ci small-block without nitrous or boost.

However, Jeff’s roadside repair skills were seriously tested. A backfire blew out the walls of several intake ports in his RFD Monster 15-degree heads. His fix? Cutting up a light-beer can and sticking it to the insides of the pushrod holes with epoxy. That held up for the duration, but the same can’t be said for his valvetrain. Lifter and rocker-arm problems wreaked havoc in Memphis, but that 9.67 pass a day earlier in Gilliam kept his finishing average in the 9s. He ended Drag Week™ with one of Mike Crow’s 1.5:1 Mopar shaft rockers accompanying the rest of his 1.7:1 Chevy rockers. Hey, whatever works, right?

01] Jeff McConnell warms the tires in preparation for a 9.999-second trip down the strip at Tulsa.

02] We were pleasantly surprised at McConnell’s mood as he performed a bit of unplanned engine restoration on Day 6. Note the lifters for No. 3 are tied up. That happened the day before. When he popped the cover to replace the lifters, he found the No. 7 intake rocker had busted in half, too. He borrowed one of Mike Crow’s Mopar rockers to make his last pass of the week and still ran a 9.99.

03] This is Jeff on Day 1, using a beer-can carcass to replace the epoxy that blew out of the intake ports of his cylinder heads after a backfire. The heads are 15-degree RFD castings that needed a bunch of clearancing for the monster pushrods to clear the intake ports. The epoxy was sealing the ports.

04] Anheuser-Busch sealed the intake ports for the duration of Drag Week™.

26/585.

05] The other Malibu in Super Street SBNA was owned by father and son Steve and Dustin Trance. He used a 402ci LS engine with L92 heads, a TH400 backed by a Gear Vendors Over/Underdrive unit, and a 9-inch rear to run 10.60s.

Super Street Power Adder

This one was c-l-o-s-e! Fascinating, as we make all power-adder cars run in the same Super Street class, regardless of displacement. The turbo cars of Rick Prospero (big-block Chevy), Tim Reed (GM LS), and Keith Lopez (small-block Ford) had the rest of the eight-car field on its heels all week long with low-8 second averages.

Keith’s story is just plain ridiculous. This was his second attempt at running Drag Week™. He initially tried to race his Mustang back in 2011. The Mustang was in a Joplin, Missouri, paint shop when a tornado took out the entire shop a few months before Drag Week™. He needed a place to stash the engine out of the ’Stang, so co-driver Gary Putnam and a large crew of friends and family stuffed it into an ’80 Fairmont station wagon that was sitting behind the shop. Construction began in June 2011, and the car’s first race was in April of 2012. His first matchup? Larry Larson in a True Street event. How’s that for a small world?

Keith hit the road with an 8.37-second pass on day one, and then battled fuel-pump and starter issues throughout the week. Things went from bad to worse when one of the rear race wheels fell off the roof rack somewhere between Hot Springs and Carlyle, Arkansas. He ran the rest of the week on street tires and went even quicker—an 8.17 on Day 6 that gave the wagon an 8.30 average.

Prospero had it just as bad. The Powerglide trans was in and out of his car several times while he and Scott Murray replaced a dead converter. Rick’s Nova spun out in the rain outside of Oklahoma on the way back to the track after a tractor-trailer blew by him. The 180 flipped his trailer over and scattered tools and spare parts all over the highway. He had already run as quick as 7.93 at 180 mph and had a small lead over Tim Reed coming into the final day of Drag Week™. Remarkably, the car and trailer made it back to Tulsa and with a last minute transmission thrash the wagon ran an 8.06 e.t. to give the guys an 8.069 average. Would it be enough?

Tim Reed owns the little Pinto that could (see the feature story in the Jun. ’12 issue), the third quickest car overall in 2011. The LS-powered hatchback with the tiny 67mm Precision turbos flirted with the 7s on day one and finally got there at Ennis with a 7.99. Reed and his father, Al, spent the rest of the week repairing the steering rack and EFI, struggling in Louisiana to run an 8.32 with plugged injectors, and then pulled within striking distance of Prospero by running an 8.01 at Memphis. They needed a three-hundredths-of-a-second miracle at Tulsa if they were to get around Prospero’s Nova wagon. The miracle almost materialized in the form of a 75hp nitrous oxide shot that the guys added before laying down a 7.94 at 171 mph minutes before Drag Week™ ended. That lowered their average to 8.0742—just .009 second slower than Prospero. Missed it by that much!

Super Street Power Adder Results

Who

Day 1

Day 2 Average

Day 3 Average

Day 4 Average

Day 5 Average

Rock Prospero

7.960

7.948

8.103

8.071

8.069

Tim Reed

8.091

8.044

8.138

8.107

8.074

Keith Lopez

8.379

8.387

8.333

8.341

8.307

Green = First Place, Yellow = Second Place, Red = Third Place

01] The Fairmont was a crowd favorite. it’s the same color as Pez candy, and it runs a 430ci Windsor with a single 88mm Precision billet turbo.

02] Tim Reed used a 408ci LSX engine with twin turbos and a 75-shot of nitrous to run 7.94 at Drag Week™ in a freakin’ Pinto.

John Monast ran a 10.20 at Tulsa on Day 1 and never looked back. He went as quick as 10.10 in his ’71 Nova and ended Drag Week™ with a 10.30 average. The problem, as he put it, was that, “I just wanted to relax and drive the car. Now I’m stressing about winning.” Martin Lewis gave chase in his ’72 Chevelle but never went quicker than 10.57 and ended up in Second Place.

01] John Monast’s ’72 Nova had the smallest engine in the class, a 0.060-over 396 with Edelbrock heads, an Edelbrock intake, and a Quickfuel carb. With nitrous as his power-adder, the Nova ran a best of 10.10 at 124 mph in Memphis. A TH350 augmented by a Gear Vendors Overdrive/Underdrive unit and a 9-inch rearend transfer 614 hp and 540 lb-ft of dyno-proven torque to 275/50R15 Mickey Thompson ET Street tires.

30/58

31/582.

02] Lewis Martin’s Chevelle looks way too nice to be near a dragstrip wall. A 434 Chevy with nitrous was good for 10.50s at Ennis and a 10.62 average, and both were quicker than the car had gone before. That makes Second Place in Street Race Big-Block PA—a win in our book.

There isn’t anything quite like the feeling we had coasting into Brinkly, Arkansas, with no brakes and having six cars stop to see if we were OK, and then finding 10 more hanging out and ducking gunshots downtown.”- Bill Fowler

Street Race Big-Block Naturally Aspirated

Bill Fowler either has an extreme thirst for adventure, an unbridled hatred of valvetrain parts, or a wicked a sense of humor. Why else would he make the tow all the way from Corona Del Mar, California, to race Drag Week™ while wearing a Hawaiian-print shirt with a straw hat taped to his helmet? The guy essentially put his body through three Drag Weeks™ and still cleaned everyone’s clock with his ’71 Mustang convertible. With 1,000 ponies on tap, the Mustang ran 9.80s and a couple of deep 10s to establish a 9.94 average that nobody came close to touching. It’s a nice win for Bill, who was part of the very first Drag Week™.

Except for a few stripped Holley bowl screws, James Pringle had zero issues with his 545ci big-block, Ford-powered ’83 Mustang, and his 10.83 average put him solidly in Second Place. You know who is a funny guy? Frank Romano. Our favorite New Yorker started a rumor at the hotel that the Christmas tree at Memphis had been struck by lightning and that racing was delayed, hoping he could sleep a few more hours on Day 4. Luckily, no one believed him and he was forced to bangshift his ’55 Chevy a few more times before heading back to Tulsa. Frank ran low 11s for an 11.09 average and Third Place.

Street Race Big-Block Naturally Aspirated Results

Who

Day 1

Day 2 Average

Day 3 Average

Day 4 Average

Day 5 Average

Bill Fowler

10.004

9.909

9.886

9.953

9.943

James Pringle

10.857

10.982

10.843

10.829

10.832

Frank Romano

11.318

11.209

11.157

11.144

11.093

Green = First Place, Yellow = Second Place, Red = Third Place

03] Frank Romano is a tattoo artist and Drag Week™ veteran who performs Pro Mod–style burnouts in his shoebox. The Chevy is motivated by a 509ci deal with Brodix -2X heads, an Edelbock intake, and a Dominator up top. He mercilessly bangshifts a Jerico four-speed and a Gear Vendors Under/Overdrive unit with little regard for the 9-inch and 315 drag radials out back.

05] James Pringles’ recipe for mid-10 second passes is pretty simple: Stuff 545 ci of Ford power between the fenders of a Fox-body ’Stang with a C6 and an 8.8 behind it, add a QA1 K-member up front and UPR control arms out back, then stick it to the track with a set of Mickeys.

Street Race Small-Block Power Adder

Jon Wischmann had the luxury of a full-second lead on 14 of the 16-car field—including everyone except Chris Olah. Jon’s ’95 ’Stang with turbo Chevy 383 power ran an 8.83 on Day 1, and Olah’s ’79 Monte Carlo ran an 8.96. Both drivers would drop their averages in Ennis and then again in Gilliam. It looked to be a dogfight until Olah wounded his 427ci small-block and barely broke the beams in Memphis. Wischman slowed considerably on his last pass, a 9.49 at 163 mph, but by then it was too late for eventual runner-up, Doug Flynn, who took Second Place in his ’72 Nova with a 9.79 average. Mark Sussino’s wheelstanding ’86 Monte Carlo took Third with a 9.92 average, making the top three cars in Street Race Small-Block Power Adder quicker than the entire Big-Block Power Adder class.

The race for Third between Sussino and Tom Franks’ Mustang was a nail-biter. On Day 4, Mark Sussino handed in the wrong timeslip, and Franks could have used that to his advantage to take Third, but he did the sportsmanlike thing and granted the podium to Sussino.

01] Jon Wischmann’s only malfunction was a shredded front tire that popped during a nasty stretch of under-construction road outside of Memphis. He runs a Rossler TH350 with a Gear Vendors Overdrive/Underdrive unit behind it, and his best pass was an 8.66 with a 1.41 60-foot time. The 383 Chevy is filled with a Callies crank, Oliver rods, and Ross pistons, and is topped with a set of AFR 210s. Twin 67mm turbos with a 90mm throttle-body and EFI help make 1,000 hp at 6,500 rpm and 840 lb-ft of torque at 5,500 rpm.

02] Mark Sussino came all the way from New Jersey in his Monte and hung ’em high on every pass. This car is ridiculously clean, and you won’t find a rollcage integrated into the stock interior of a car as nicely as this one was.

04] Doug Flynn’s LSX-powered Nova features a set of ported L92 heads by S.A.M, a Holley Hi-Ram intake, a 90mm throttle-body, and an 80mm SX400 Borg-Warner turbo. A Holley Dominator EFI system feeds the engine, which pumps 796 hp and 700 lb-ft of torque to a 4L80E overdrive tranny and a Dana 60 rear with 3.73:1 gears.

39/585.

05] We have to give Chris Olah some love because he helped everybody, including Todd Maschmeier, without worrying about how late he’d be getting to the motel each night, and he was a player in Street Race Small-Block PA until his own valvetrain problems put an end to his fun.

Street Race Small-Block Naturally Aspirated

Last year’s Second Place racer, Jake Stelter, was huntin’ for 9s all week this year, and he almost got ’em. His ’67 Malibu slaughtered a lifter between tracks on Day 4. That only slowed him down a tenth, and he turned in a 10.08 slip for a 9.997 average.

His closest competition came from last year’s class winner, Alan Crump, who replaced the starter in his Fox body four times before realizing that a ton of ignition timing advance was what was killing them. Alan almost broke into the 9s at Gilliam with a 10.007 pass and took Second Place with a 10.14-second average.

Mike Crow has won multiple times at Drag Week™ with his familiar red ’73 ’Cuda, and his new and lighter ’69 Dart is a definite contender, running the ’Cuda’s old engine. It ran a best of 10.10 at 135 mph and averaged 10.17 for Third Place.

Street Race Small-Block Naturally Aspirated

Who

Day 1

Day 2 Average

Day 3 Average

Day 4 Average

Day 5 Average

Jake Stetler

9.965

9.930

9.936

9.949

9.967

Alan Crump

10.186

10.170

10.115

10.135

10.144

Mike Crow

10.270

10.195

10.168

10.164

10.174

Green = First Place, Yellow = Second Place, Red = Third Place

40/58

01] Jake and Christina Stelter’s Malibu has a nasty, 23-degree, 402ci small-block Chevy with Dart Pro 1 heads and a rowdy cam that makes power way up there—like 740hp at 8,300 rpm up there. There’s a lot of science there from engine builder 3V Performance. See the feature story that’s in our Jan. ’12 issue.

02] Mike Crow’s new Dart has the angriest sounding 420ci Mopar we’ve ever heard. When he snaps the gears in the G-Force five-speed, the hair on the back of our necks stands up.

03] Alan Crump’s week was going great until the slicks fell off his trailer on the way back to Tulsa. We imagine the moment he realized the tires were gone, his face sorta looked like this.

04] How do you keep a white engine compartment looking so fresh and so clean after a Drag Week™ downpour? Vicki Crow suggests shampoo. That wasn’t robbed from the motel, was it?

It drives great when it’s accelerating, but once you take your foot off the pedal at 110 mph, she gets squirrelly.”- Keith Harrison

Gasser/AFX

The second running of the Gasser/AFX class was almost a repeat of last year’s finish, except Keith Fox swapped spots with Mike Cox. Cox took the win in 2011 with a 12.86 average in his ’53 Ford Customline, and Fox took Second in his Poison Gas ’30 Ford with a 12.88 average. Keith came back with a vengeance in 2012, drastically lowering the e.t. of his blown Gasser and finishing with an 11.001 average for the win. Mike also made gains, running as quick as 12.10 at 112 mph and setting a 12.21 average for Second Place. Nobody had more fun than Smilin’ Keith Harrison, who hit the road in his ’55 shoebox with brother Oscar Harrison and Greg Deese with zero test time before Drag Week™. They nabbed Third Place with a 12.71 average.

Gasser/AFX Results

Who

Day 1

Day 2 Average

Day 3 Average

Day 4 Average

Day 5 Average

Keith Fox

11.069

10.931

10.952

10.968

11.001

Mike Cox

12.419

12.341

12.263

12.232

12.216

Keith Harrison

12.940

12.792

12.903

12.821

12.719

Green = First Place, Yellow = Second Place, Red = Third Place

Hot Rod

Tom Dziengel was a bit lonely in the Hot Rod class because no one else bothered to jump in. With only the pressure of finishing on his shoulders, he cruised to a win in his ’40 Ford sedan with a 12.67 average.

44/585.

05] The only drama Mike Cox had was a malfunctioning charging system, which he fixed on the last day, and a busted turn-signal lever, which he fixed with Vise-Grip needle-nose pliers. The ’53 Ford is powered by a small Chevy with Dart iron heads, a Hurricane intake, and a Holley 750 Ultra HP. A TH350 and 9-inch make up the rest of the drivetrain. The nose-high stance was achieved by grafting on a Chevy S10 front clip, and then adding Fabtech 3-inch-lift spindles. He’ll be back next year with a Henry J gasser.

06] The Poison Gas car was a crowd favorite and a pooch to drive with a mild 350 topped with Edelbrock heads and an underdriven Mooneyham 6-71 blower building 5 psi below a set of inline Holleys.

07] Adam Leigh convinced his dad, Gary, to drag his OG ’55 Chevy Bel Air Gasser out of the garage after 30 years of hibernation. He couldn’t talk him into replacing the 30-year-old clutch, though, which Gary drove right through on the first pass. The guys got that fixed and kept on truckin’. Dig the tube front axle—Gary built that himself in 1970.

08] Everyone seemed to run their best at Gilliam, Louisiana, and Tom Dziengel ran his quickest pass ever there with a 12.58 at 107 mph. The sedan is motivated by a 383 with Edelbrock E-Street heads with a Holley 750 vacuum-secondary carb; the car formerly had a TPI setup, but the class requires a carburetor. Tom figures it’s making 400 ponies at the crank. It’s spinning a 700R4 and 8.8 rearend.

Unlimited

We hope that decades from now whoever pens the story about whatever incarnation Drag Week™ has morphed into takes a hard look at what transpired in 2012. Larry Larson will undoubtedly shine as the legend who won the Unlimited class title a fifth time in a row, but if the author digs deep, they’ll realize this was the first time he was truly challenged by a strong field of competitors. The e.t. numbers 7.00, 7.10, 7.16, and 7.32 were not put up by Larson but by a nitrous-swilling ’66 Corvette, a turbocharged small-block in a Pro Mod-type ’68 Camaro, and two other turbocharged big-block Chevys, respectively. That was just Day 1 at Tulsa. We hit the road grinning at the prospect of a WrestleMania-type fight for the title. We lost two of the 17 Unlimited competitors on the way to Texas and seven others were outclassed e.t.-wise. That left Jeff Lutz, Tom Bailey, Shawn Fink, Joe Barry, and Dave Schroeder to chase Larson after he ran a 6.94 on Day 1.

Dave Ahokas possessed hardware that frustrated the field but that was in danger of being pummeled by the road. His car is a Camaro in name only; the honest truth is that it began life as a Jerry Bickel–built Pro Mod car with a composite body. It was converted for street use by increasing the ride height, adding functional exterior lights and a passenger seat, and registering it in his home state of Texas. With a curb weight of only 2,580 pounds it’s the lightest car in the class, and it runs a 411ci, twin-turbo small-block built by Kenny Duttweiler. It ran 7.00 at just 193 mph at Tulsa and got everyone talking. The debate on whether or not it was a street car ended when Ahokas failed to reach the second track after charging system problems stopped him the first night.

Remember Denny Terzich’s carbon-fiber–bodied Camaro called Project Sick Seconds? He sold it to Tom Bailey, and Bailey had Steve Morris build a 615ci big-block Chevy with twin Precision 94mm turbos to replace the old supercharged engine. The car ripped its way to a 7.10 e.t., and then fought Bailey and Morris the rest of the week with ECU and ignition problems and a few too many busted shaft rocker arms. It saw time on a trailer before the end of Drag Week™, which put the team out of competition, but then Bailey came back the last day and made an exhibition run that’ll spook the class for the next 12 months; he ran a 6.94, equaling Larson’s quickest run in Drag Week™ history.

48/581.

01] Doug Cline has no luck. His '69 Camaro tagged the wall during Sunday's test 'n' tune session. We hear an intercooler reservoir leak was the problem.

02] We followed Lutz, Fink, Bailey, Barry, and a few others to the first gas station on the road out of Tulsa, which ran out of gas, and then to dinner at a local pizza joint. No one seemed to care that we only had a few hours of daylight left when pepperoni was on the table.

03] These ducts that Jeff Lutz made are the key to not passing out from carbon-monoxide poisoning in an Unlimited car. They grad fresh air and keep at least one side of your face from melting too.

04] Jeff Lutz sheared a torque-converter bolt at Tulsa. He stayed late at the track to weld up Daily Driver Mick Wilkes' header and Tim Reed's Pinto oil pan before hitting the road. He didn't bother to replace the converter bolt.

Dave Schroeder and John Ens have finished and won at Drag Week™ but never in an Unlimited car. This year, they put together a ’66 Corvette using the scraps of a leftover Tony Christian project, building a 598ci Chevy with four stages of Monte Smith nitrous power, and then going quicker than any nitrous car ever has at Drag Week™. The 7.32 pass at Tulsa was only on a single stage of spray, and it was the first time the car had ever seen the track with Schroeder behind the wheel. We had high hopes for this one, but it overheated and killed a pair of lithium-ion batteries during the first drive, and then a lifter went away on Day 2. Maybe next year.

Joe Barry is in the same boat as Jeff Lutz with a heavier, steel-bodied car, but that hasn’t dissuaded him from wringing out his twin-turbo’d, 598ci ’56 Chevy in pursuit of the Drag Week™ 200 MPH Club. His ’56 Chevy ran a 7.56 at 202 mph in Tulsa but then shook the tires so hard that the windshield cracked and the trans broke in Texas. He ran 202, but you have to finish the week to get in the club. We expect him back again.

Shawn Fink teamed up with well-known EFI tuner Brian Macy to take a stab at Unlimited class stardom in Fink’s ’63 Nova panel. The 23-degree-headed, small-block Chevy sports a single turbo and was yanked from Macy’s drag car. The guys struggled mightily with the road and the car all week but finished Drag Week™ while outlasting 14 other cars for a Third Place finish and a best pass of 7.90 seconds.

At the start of Drag Week™, Jeff Lutz said he wanted to run a 6-second pass and make Larry Larson work hard to retain the Unlimited class crown and title of HOT ROD’s Fastest Street Car in America. Jeff went right to work with a 7.16 pass on Day 1, which was about two-tenths of a second behind Larry. On Day 2, Larry ran 7.11, and Jeff ran 7.01 to put his ’57 Chevy within .05 second of Larry’s average. On Day 3, Jeff took the class lead with a 7.002 pass, and his tune didn’t change. Jeff wanted the 6 and was happy that Larry had been busting his ass all week, making four passes in Louisiana to try and stay ahead of Jeff. The rest of the class was more than a second off the pace since Jeff and Larry were the only drivers running low-7-second passes each day. When the last eight Unlimited cars limped into Tulsa on Day 5, Jeff had the lead by .01 second, and a rainstorm looked to end the show without giving Larry a shot at a comeback. History said we’d likely cancel the last day of competition, giving Jeff the win. Jeff wanted to race rather than win by default. He still hadn’t run a 6, and he didn’t want the title because Mother Nature got in the way.

52/581.

01] This is Jeff Lutz’ ’57 Chevy on the way to Tulsa at the end of the week, with a 0.0116 lead over Larry Larson, the first lead Jeff ever had during Drag Week™ over the four-time champ. In fact, no one has been ahead of Larson during Drag Week™ ever since the first year.

02] When they weren’t battling fried brake pads, Macy and Fink were having the time of their lives. By the way, they smoked the front pads in Arkansas, and the only hot rodder in town just happened to have an identical set of Wilwood drag brakes on his Mustang and sold them to the guys for cheap.

03] Joe Barry’s 598ci big-block Chevy started getting hot 40 miles outside of Tulsa, so he pulled over and removed the oil-containment diaper from the bottom end of the engine to help cool it down. The next day, he broke a sprag in his Lenco trans and called it quits.

04] Tom Bailey destroyed rocker arms, overheated his MSD Digital 7 ignition and BigStuff3 computer, got a ticket for rolling past a stop sign, and although he was out of competition, still drove to Tulsa and laid one down one last pass—a 6.94.

05] Brad Barkley had one of the coolest trailers at Drag Week™, a single-axle deal built from the bed of a Datsun Bulletside pickup, which matched his ’73 240Z perfectly. After missing the finish of Drag Week™ ’11 by 100 miles because of a faded rod bearing, you’d think things couldn’t get any worse. This year, Brad ended up in the Middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma, so lost that not even 911 or AAA could find him and his brother, Ken. He was forced to tow Ken’s Malibu and trailer behind his 240Z and trailer using a tow strap for 30 miles before they found civilization. The tow killed the rear tires, then several rocker arms exploded, and finally, the Powerglide gave up. The blown Z usually runs low-9s but finished with a 12.80 average.

56/58

The Decision

Drag Week™ has been rained out before. It happened in 2011, and we settled the scores by taking everyone’s four-day average e.t. to determine class winners. We felt unsatisfied with the outcome. This year we were determined not to let Mother Nature decide everyone’s fate on the last day after they had been through hell and back. We stared at the weather report, took the temperature of the crowd, and ultimately made the decision based on our gut reaction. We would wait and we would race. Our intrepid announcer, Brian Lohnes, made the call over the PA system The problem was that his wires were crossed with ours, and he had mistakenly announced that the plug had been pulled on Drag Week™ without a final showdown at Tulsa. Freiburger quickly grabbed the mic from his hands and said we would postpone the event until Saturday and wait out the precipitation. You could have heard a pin drop in the pits when he released the mic button. The guys leading each class might have preferred a win via rainout, one of them even screaming that in our faces. But wouldn’t that be a hollow victory? It was a controversial decision that felt right. The downside was that it ultimately rained again before we could finish the Daily Driver bracket race. For the second year in a row that class was hosed. We’re sorry.

Shawn Fink had Third Place in Unlimited locked up with an 8.59 average. Had we cut the race short, Lutz would have won with a four-day average of 7.081 to Larson’s 7.09275. On Saturday, it was anyone’s guess what would happen. All we knew for sure is that both racers would keep making passes until someone crashed, blew up, or won the title. Lutz ran a 7.09, Larson went 7.01. Lutz went again, this time a 7.03 that kept his average ahead of Larry’s. Larry responded with another 6.94 pass, the same epic number he made on Day 1. It was a shot that Lutz would not be able to recover from, not with wounded equipment. He turned up the boost anyway and actually went slower. It was all over. Larry finished with a 7.0622 average, and Jeff had a 7.0714 average. It was the closest Unlimited class finish in the history of Drag Week™ and the fastest averages by two racers that we’d ever witnessed. The difference after five days of racing was 0.0092, less than a hundredth of a second.

Back in the pits, the only thing that seemed to bother Jeff was that he didn’t run in the 6s. He says he’ll be back next year, but his son, Jeffrey, will likely be driving either the ’57 or his own Unlimited car. Larry was on cloud nine, but he talked about building a new car to go land-speed racing. Who knows whether or not he’ll come back for a sixth title. There was a TV crew following him all week for a multi-part HOT ROD TV series. Maybe seeing his win from the outside looking in on the boob tube will push him to defend the title again. Or maybe he’ll just come back because he loves racing too much to stay away. Either way, once again Larry Larson is The Man. And his ’66 Nova, for the fifth year in a row, is HOT ROD’s Fastest Street Car in America.

01] Was there every any doubt that Larry Larson would win a fifth straight jacket at Drag Week™? We’ll admit to thinking this would be the year someone would unseat him, and Jeff Lutz came closer than anyone. If there was ever an indication of how streetable his Nova is, it’s this: We tried to keep up with Larry through the twistys of Oklahoma in a rental car and couldn’t. The guy was doing 80 mph around corners in a car that goes 209 mph in a straight line. Unreal!

57/58

58/582.

02] By the time we reached Memphis, there were only eight cars left in Unlimited, and only two had a shot at winning. Both Larson and Lutz struggled. Larson wasted a ring-and-pinion set in his 9-inch, and Lutz fried a complete set of lifters. A post-DW inspection also revealed that Lutz’ turbos were seizing up, and he had 80 percent leakdown in one of the Chevy’s cylinders. HOT ROD

There’s a 16-minute HOT ROD Unlimited video that follows the blow-by-blow in the Unlimited class that can be seen by going to YouTube.com/MotorTrend and searching the channel for “Drag Week.” Also search for “Roadkill episode 12” to see a behind-the-scenes video with the HRM staff.

Finally, watch HOT ROD TV on SPEED to see two complete episodes loaded with the drama of Drag Week™.

Coming Next Month

This issue’s story covers all the fast classes at Drag Week™, but the meat-and-potatos of the event is the Daily Driver class. Any car can run that class; the only limitation is that they don’t exceed 10.80 in the quarter, as we prefer to see quicker cars in the heads-up classes. Come back next month to read about the top 32 Daily Driver cars at the 2012 Drag Week™.